


A Shot in the Dark

by IceAngelDarkMoon



Category: The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (2015)
Genre: Getting Together, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Misunderstandings, Pining, Resolved Sexual Tension, Soulmate-Identifying Marks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-21
Updated: 2018-01-21
Packaged: 2019-03-07 20:47:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,985
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13443093
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IceAngelDarkMoon/pseuds/IceAngelDarkMoon
Summary: The second thing that had registered with Illya when he had been briefed about one Napoleon Solo was the fact that the man was noted as not having a soulmark. This was not unheard of but very uncommon and very useful for a spy. Especially one who specialized in seduction; there was no risk of finding your match. Illya found that the thought of this beautiful man (the first thing he had noticed about the American spy) not having a mark or soulmate rankled him for some reason.Illya tries to deal with his growing attraction to his partner because he knows that Napoleon doesn't have one, right?





	A Shot in the Dark

**Author's Note:**

> I have always loved Soulmate Mark stories, and the variety of how marks work. This is my own take on this, and hopefully people will like my spin on how the marks work. Hopefully I have left more room for non-romatic solmates! This story just would not leave me alone until I wrote it, so whilst it is not like I initially imagined it, the core elements remained.
> 
> As with most of mine, there is no beta reader, so please excuse any typos.

The second thing that had registered with Illya when he had been briefed about one Napoleon Solo was the fact that the man was noted as not having a soulmark. This was not unheard of but very uncommon and very useful for a spy. Especially one who specialized in seduction; there was no risk of finding your match. Illya found that the thought of this beautiful man (the first thing he had noticed about the American spy) not having a mark or soulmate rankled him for some reason.

Illya tried to ignore the tingle that had rushed through him when he first saw the American at the checkpoint. There was no reason that this man should make him feel any different than any other adversary. When he was left standing in an active mine field that evening, watching Solo and Miss Teller drive away, the only thing Illya was feeling was rage and embarrassment at being out maneuvered. He could feel the American’s eyes on him until the back curtain of the truck fell and blocked them from each other. Illya cursed the man, but thought that that was the last he would ever have to deal with the man.

The next morning when Oleg led him into that men’s restroom and his eyes had landed on the equally surprised Solo, Illya could not help the rage that washed over him. He had hardly slept the previous night, as Oleg had left him to stew on his defeat in the field for most of the night. Illya lost track of what was happening, as he usually did when one of his rages took over. However, as soon as he had Solo in the choke hold and the other man’s head brushed against Illya’s clavicle, Illya felt a completely unwanted tingle wash over him. It was that shock that held him back from killing the other man. More so than Oleg’s words. It did not help that Solo was not looking particularly worried that Illya had been so close to killing him; Illya thought Solo should at least look a bit more worried.

Illya tried to ignore the flutter inside when he found that they worked well together. Yes, Solo was still irritating and made Illya gnash his teeth in rage. However, there was an ease that they could not ignore. Where one’s skills failed, the other’s began. Illya found that watching Solo work on the lock to get into the facilitate was impressive. Yet he felt a perverse satisfaction when even though he opened the vault door the alarm sounded. It reminded him that the other man was human and imperfect.

Illya was stubborn and refused to acknowledge any weird feelings when he came to in the water and Solo was holding him. It took a moment for his brain to catch onto the fact that the American had somehow come back for him and saved him. There was no time to think as they jumped onto one small bike and raced back to the hotel. Illya told himself any fluttering of his insides was due to shock and cold, not being saved and then pressed close to the annoying thief.

It was harder to ignore that there was a bond of some sort when his heart sank as he saw the Cowboy strapped to Rudi's electric chair. It felt like his heart had dislodged from his chest and was down near his feet. Illya was glad he could hold his face stoic when on mission. When his eye's met Solo's he raised a finger to his lips. He was suddenly ready to do some gratuitous violence. From the state of the American, Rudi had already pumped a decent amount of electricity through the man. When Illya was behind Rudi and Solo spoke, he felt his heart return to where it should have been.

"I never thought I would be glad to see you." Solo had practically wheezed the words, defiant even when he was battered.

After the mission, after they had burned the tape, and after they had found out this would not be a one-off partnership, Illya dared to look. He had left Solo out on the veranda and retreated to his own room, one that he no longer shared with Gaby. He was unsure how he felt about the woman, he had not completely reconciled her actions with the woman he had tucked drunk into bed. He did a quick sweep of the room, and found 3 more American bugs, and one that he was not sure what make it was. He dropped them all into a glass of water; he was not in the mood to return these ones. Only then did he proceed to the bathroom mirror.

Taking a steadying breath, he tried to pull the collar of his turtleneck down to his clavicle, he glimpsed the mark there but not enough for him to say for certain. Giving a frustrated huff he reached down and pulled the whole shirt off. He took one calming breath, in through his nose and out through his mouth, a method he had been taught, but rarely actually calmed him. His eyes immediately found the mark in the mirror. He could no longer deny it, there was a slight tinge of color in the once white mark. It was still light enough that it was difficult to determine if it was the purple of platonic friendship or the red of romantic love. Illya could deny a little longer that he was falling in love with the American thief. His finger traced the mark in the mirror, not daring to acknowledge the mark on his flesh. Though reflected he knew the image, and now he was fairly sure he understood it.

On his clavicle there was what appeared to be a cat wearing a Stetson style hat. It also appeared that the cat had markings on its face that made it look like it was wearing a little mask. He, and his KGB handlers, had always assumed that the cat meant it would be a female match, no matter that the hat was usually associated with men. He knew that another name for Stetsons were cowboy hats, and the cat most likely was in reference to the phrase “cat bugler”. The KGB had kept him away from Americans for much of his career, as the hat was a clear American association. And when that could not be helped they made sure that the people had no association with the far west of the country. Clearly, they had not been creative enough. Illya was not sure he was glad that they had failed to keep him from his soul mate or not. It had never really crossed his mind that he may be one of the mismatched mates, that he was not his soulmate’s mate.

He gave a tired sigh, he could do no more now and let his hand fall away from the mirror. It was still possible it was only a platonic mark. There would be no reason to reveal what he knew to the Cowboy. It was something that he would just have to ignore. A soulmate would compromise him as an agent and that was what he had been trained to be.

Mission followed mission after Istanbul and Illya stayed attached to UNCLE. He found, despite his efforts to stay aloof, that both his partners wormed their ways into his life. More so Solo than Gaby, and Illya made it a point to never been caught without his shirt on around them. He never glanced at his chest in the mirror or looked down, tried to ignore the tingling he felt there every time he and Solo even brushed against each other. What he couldn’t ignore was how well they worked together. They clicked in a way that seemed to amuse Waverly and baffle everyone else. Illya found he did not need to think, but knew where his Cowboy would be and how he would react. Almost every mission still had elements that never went to plan, but for the most part they came home in one piece. Until one day they didn’t.

Napoleon had gotten himself caught. Had traded his safety to make sure that Gaby and Illya made it out. Illya dove for his tracking devices as soon as he reached the safe house. Gaby covered her mouth as they heard the unmistakable thuds of flesh on flesh of Solo being beaten. Illya passed the listening equipment to Gaby and scrambled to get a position with his trackers. He had it within a few miles before the transmitter stopped, and he saw that Gaby had had the same issue with the listening device. He could not help the soft swearing in Russian that escaped him.

It took another 30 minutes for them to cross reference the area they had narrowed it down to with anything relevant to their current case. It was Gaby who found it, or what they hoped was it. Tucked into one of the pages of information they had pulled together as they scouted out the target. It was written in Solo’s elegant script, written smaller than Illya would have expected, tucked into the margin. It was what Solo suspected was a safe house that was not currently being used.

As Gaby drove Illya to it he tried not to think how much damage could be inflicted in the time it had taken them to find this building. They had let Waverly know where they were going; in case they needed to be rescued, but more likely so that the cleanup crew knew where to go. Illya was glad that Gaby had taken over the driving, he could feel the shaking in his hands, and clenched them to stifle the telling motion. Gaby screeched to a halt a block away and around the corner from the building.

“Bring him back.” Gaby said with a fierceness to it, unspoken was the make them pay for everything they had done to Solo. They were a team, and no one messed with them. Illya gave her a curt nod and was gone blending into the shadows.

Time lost meaning as Illya snuck up behind the first guard and knocked him unconscious. Illya came back to himself in a dark room, under the only light, hanging suspended was a body. At Illya’s feet were the crumpled remains of what looked like a bulky man with bruised knuckles. Illya gave the body another hard kick and then stepped over it towards the body. As his eyes took in the sight in front of him more fully his body froze where it was mid motion. His heart seemed to stop mid beat, too.

Hanging from a pipe in the ceiling by his wrists, toes just brushing the ground, was a naked Solo. This alone would not have been too much of a shock for Illya, it was not outside what he had seen people use for torture. Even the nakedness of the body did not surprise him; taking someone’s clothes made them feel more vulnerable, and it exposed new areas to hit. No, it was that Napoleon was covered in marks. There were some new bruises and cuts, these still slowly oozing blood. But more numerous and disperse across his body were scars. They seemed to litter almost every surface of the skin that Illya could see.

Most of the scars looked old, faded, and slowly being reincorporated into the skin. Some of them looked like some sort of accident and shrapnel. But others looked like knife cuts, or something that sliced, as they were long and thin. The most numerous were little circles of shiny white skin. If he had to guess he would think they were cigarette burns, because no one would have survived if those were bullet holes. Of the more recent scars, there were some that were clearly bullet holes, or bullet skims. There were some knife wounds as well. Some of these were still tinged faintly pink showing they were not nearly that old. These newer ones did not phase him, he himself had many similar marks and would have expected the same of someone in the same profession. No, it was those older marks that made his stomach clench and his heart ache. Many looked like they were from when Solo was very young.

“Take a picture, it will last longer.” A tired voice called out, shaking Illya out of his stupor. He realized that his hands had begun to shake again, but he focused to make them stop. There was no safe way to let go of his current rage, not without hurting Solo, and he couldn’t do that. No one should ever hurt him, nor would they whilst Illya had any say in the matter.

“Is not your best angle.” Illya tried to tease, but it came out shakier than he meant. He took a breath and then crossed so that he stood in front of Solo. He could see that the back of the man was not an aberration, instead there were more scars across his front as well. There were all those old scars, if anything the accident or shrapnel ones seemed more numerous, concentrated around his navel. Of the newer marks Illya recognized a bullet hole near his shoulder and knife cut that cut across one of Solo’s pectoral muscles. They had been injuries that Solo had taken whilst they had been working together. There was one other newer mark. It looked like a ragged bullet hole just above Solo’s left hip. It was tinged slightly pink, but Illya could not remember Solo taking a hit there or walking in such a way as to hint at that scar. He wondered how many others he had not noticed, and Solo had hidden from him.

“I know that I am very pretty Peril, but if you wouldn’t mind releasing me, I will let you look all you like back at the safe house. My arms seem to be protesting my current position.” Solo reminded gently, and Illya realized how long he had been staring again.

Illya withdrew a knife from the top of his boot and walked around to Solo’s back to begin cutting through the ropes at his wrist. He could have stay in front, but he realized that he did not want to look Solo in the eye currently. The front of Solo was distracting, Illya could not help glancing at his lower half, and had seen things he would think about later. But it was not that which kept him hiding. No, it was the realization that he had seen all of Napoleon now, every inch of him, and could confirm with his own eyes that there was no soul mark anywhere. That thought was something that Illya would need time to process. He had not realized how much he had expected a mark to be there. Not just because of the color that was getting stronger in his own mark, but because of the way they worked together, the way they got each other. But apparently it was just that way for him.

The knife cut through the last of the rope and Solo’s arms swung down bonelessly, and he tipped forward. Illya grabbed him before he could hit the ground, pulling his naked partner against his chest. His collarbone burned at the contact, and Illya knew. He knew that when he next braved the mirror, he knew the color he would see. He had known the moment Solo did not meet them like he was supposed to, the panic he had felt, his mark would not be purple. And now he knew that it would only be his mark, there was no match.

“Look at that you have me falling for you Peril, you better be careful with all that charm.” Solo’s teasing was a bit breathless, and Illya could feel where the words brushed across his arm. He knew it was just the normal banter for Solo, but this time it stung. He knew he had to keep pretending like nothing had changed, that they were still just the partners that worked together.

“Bad luck, caught the terrible spy. Might be fatal.” His retort caused Solo to laugh, and things returned to normal. They grabbed Solo’s trousers and Illya turned to allow him a moment of privacy to pull them on. When he turned back around Solo was pulling the remains of his dress shirt on, and buttoned the 3 buttons that were still intact. It covered all the scars, but Illya now knew what hid under all the fancy suits.

They did not talk about what Illya had seen that night. He never brought it up, as he was not one to bring things up. But it also did not feel like his place. Solo had never shared anything about the marks, and Illya had seen not because Solo had trusted him and shared, but because there was no other way. If Solo wanted to talk about them, he would, Illya could never stop him from talking. But the American was back to his usual charming and elegant self by the next morning, even if he was still walking stiffly.

Yet over the next few missions Illya noticed that Solo allowed himself to be seen in less than perfect states. Something that Illya had not realized that Solo had not done before. Before his capture Solo only appeared in his suits, at most the jacket gone, tie loose, one button undone at the neck and the sleeves rolled up. Every once in a while, he would appear in his pajamas, but these included slippers and a robe that covered everything. Now though, Illya would be able to catch glimpses of Solo in his undershirt, buttoning up his shirt. Or as he changed into his pajamas, shirts completely removed.

One morning, when they were sharing a suite of rooms, business partners starting a new venture, Solo surprised Illya completely. Just as Illya was tinkering with a new camera at the breakfast table, Solo flicked on the kettle. As Illya looked up he saw Solo in just his pajama bottoms, and hair in it’s naturally curly state. Solo looked sleep rumpled and relaxed, hip resting against the counter as he yawned and drew a mug down from the shelf. Illya let his eyes wander, taking in once more all the scars, but this time seeing how beautiful Solo truly was. He was a bit surprised that Solo had his bottoms pulled up over his hip bones, he would have guessed that Solo would let them hang low on his hips, unable to resist the more suggestive position.

“Sugar?” Solo asked, and Illya startled badly. He knocked the camera against the table and dropped the tiny screw he had been holding.

“Oh sorry, I thought you heard me come in.” Solo apologized and knelt to grab the screw for Illya. When he held it out, Illya was careful to try and not let his touch linger.

“Knew. Accident.” Illya found the words sticking, and tumbling together in his mind, and was glad he answered something.

“Guess it happens to all of us. You must have been thinking about things pretty hard. I just wanted to know if you knew if we had any sugar. I am feeling lazy and indulgent this morning.” Illya felt something slide back to normal in his chest. For a moment he had thought that Solo had used a pet name for him, something that was illogical and not anything Illya wanted. Not at all.

Illya pointed to the top shelf and turned back to his camera. Solo paused a moment, and Illya felt his eyes on him, before the other man turned to where Illya had pointed. A stronger man than him could not have resisted the way his eyes turned to follow the ripple of Solo’s back muscles as he stretched up to grasp the tin of sugar from the high shelf. Illya felt the screwdriver in his hand begin to bend, and he turned back to his work, compartmentalizing his feelings. He would deal with them later. Maybe.

They settled into a rhythm and they continued to work well together, better than anyone else Illya had ever worked with. In the down time between missions there were moments that Illya wondered if there might be something else there. That even if he was not Solo’s soul mate, if they could still have something between them. But he never acted on that. The job came first, the next mission was always there, he couldn’t jeopardize what they had.

Illya did his best to stay away from mirrors. Every time he caught a glimpse out of the corner of his eye, he could not deny the color that now stood out on his chest. He made sure that he was never without a shirt around Solo. If he needed a wound dressed he either did it himself or let a medic handle it, anything to keep Solo from seeing what was written in his skin. He knew that at times this made Solo suspicious, but he knew the other man would never force him to tell what he was hiding. And that would have stayed the case if Illya hadn’t been shot.

The mission was following the pattern that seemed to form all their missions. It was going perfectly until it blew up in their faces and people started shooting at them. Gaby was in the get away car, waiting for Illya and Solo to reach her and then they would all flee to safety. Unfortunately, Solo and Illya got pinned down by a group of men with guns. If there hadn’t been guns, Illya could have taken them, but the guns made it a different sort of game. The UNCLE agents were running out of ammo, and it didn’t seem that this would be the case for the other side. Illya made a split-second decision; he could do it.

Grabbing one of the boxes that they were sheltered behind, he launched it at their attackers. The gun fire immediately focused on the box. At the same time, Illya, grabbed Solo, and they made a run for it. Illya placed himself between the American and the guns. They were just about to turn the corner and make it away when the goons caught on to their plan, and two of them got off lucky shots. One clipped Illya’s side, the other went through his right shoulder. He only had time to register he had been hit, before they made it around the corner. He was able to keep it together to the car and it was only when Gaby burned rubber peeling away from their pursuit that Illya allowed his body’s reaction to register.

“That was a stupid move Peril, but it worked. I owe you.” Solo teased, and Illya could feel the moment the other man’s eyes turned to really look at him. There was an intake of air that sounded loud in the backseat of the car. “Illya?” It wasn’t fair, Napoleon never called him that, and he never sounded like that. Like someone had punched him in the gut. Illya tried to smile, to show him it wasn’t that bad but at that moment things started to turn black and his whole body seemed to tingle. He succumbed to that blackness before he could say anything. 

Consciousness was not an easy return for Illya. It was slow, and seemed to like a slowly rising tide, moments of more clarity and then confusion. He did not attempt to open his eyes straightaway, instead he took stock of what he knew before then. Yet he found he was distracted by the feel of something. It took another rise in his mental acuity to realize it was the feeling of his hand being held, with a thumb brushing in circles and designs against the back. It was soothing, and something no one had ever done for him before. It took only another moment for him to realize whose hand it was that was holding his.

“Cowboy?” He attempted to croak as he forced his eyes open. It took another moment for the blur that was next to him to materialize into the form he had expected. Yet for all his expectations, Solo did not look how he had expected. Instead the usually flawless man looked exhausted and worn. His hair was back in its natural curls, and his suit was rumpled.

“Illya?” Solo sounded hesitant, and Illya could see the way the American’s eyes had locked on to him.

“Da.” That at least came out how he wanted it to. It was still a bit croaky. Before he could really think about that, Solo was reaching over with his free hand and grabbing a glass with a straw. He held it out to Illya, not to take but to just drink. Illya would normally protest that he did not need to be treated like glass, but he found he rather liked it. And it looked like it was something that Solo needed to do. It was only when Solo returned the glass to the tray that Illya realized he had never let go of Illya with his other hand.

“What do you remember?” Solo asked, eyes now fixed on the glass of water rather than Illya. Illya felt his brows draw down as he thought.

“Mission. Cornered. Bullets. The car?” The last part was a bit fuzzy in his head.

“When you say it like that it all sounds so simple and routine. That was 48 hours ago, in case you were wondering. You passed out in my arms, without even saying you had been hit, let alone where.” Solo turned his eyes to glare at Illya and then broke eye contact to look down at their joined hands. “Thankfully, Gaby is an excellent driver, and I can do a bit of field medic work. You lost a lot of blood.”

Illya went to shrug at this, but found his right shoulder blazing in pain at that motion. He hissed, and Solo was half out of his seat, hovering over him in a moment. His free hand stalled as if it had wanted to hold Illya against the pillow but thought better of it.

“Why didn’t you ever tell me?” Solo asked, his voice broke in the middle. He looked away from Illya for a moment, took a breath and then held his eyes again.

“Passed out.” His eyebrows drew down in confusion at the strange line of Solo’s questioning. It drew a harsh laugh from the American.

“Not your injury. We both do that all the time. No, I meant that.” Here Solo took their joined hands and pointed at Illya’s left clavicle. Illya glanced down, and his eyes widened in shock. He had not realized that without his shirt Solo could see clearly the soul mark there. There was no way to pretend it was anything but Solo’s mark. And it was clearly a dark red.

“Why didn’t you ever say anything?” His voice wavered again. Instead of the panic Illya felt a moment before he focused on Solo. His face was a picture of pain. He still hadn’t let go of Illya’s hand, nor had he sat back down. Instead he hovered just over his mark on Illya’s chest.

“It wasn’t supposed to be me.” Illya felt his heart give a twinge at that. He knew Solo didn’t have his mark, but he thought there would be more compassion than this.

“You deserve someone so much better than me.” This caused Illya to look up sharply. Solo had never suffered a lack of ego before, so this was worrying. But Solo had dropped his eyes to their hands again, his thumb resuming its motions. “I always thought you would be paired with some equally Red future babushka. Or possibly a nice, pretty, little fräulein.” He gave a hollow laugh, and Illya wanted to reach out and comfort Solo somehow, but his hands remained frozen.

“I know it is really unfair of me to ask, especially as I am not sure you are completely conscious. But I hope you would let me try to make you happy. To try and deserve you.” He made sure to look up and meet Illya’s eyes at this.

“Don’t humor me. You don’t have to do that. You don’t have a mark.” Illya hoped it got his point across. It was not fair of Solo to make him feel so many conflicting emotions all at once. Instead of replying to Illya, Solo looked confused and then his brow cleared, and he smiled.

“Why do you think that, my dear Peril?” There was almost a purr to his voice, and Illya felt wrong-footed again.

“Your file says you do not have one.” He paused and then decided that it was past time they spoke of everything. “I saw when you were captured. You do not have a mark, and certainly not mine.”

“You trust my file?” Solo quirked his eyebrow and a smirk clung to his lips. “It has always been so truthful about everything, right? Like my age when I joined the military?”

“No, they got that wrong. Bad at math.” Illya had been shocked when he looked through Solo’s file. There were so many things that didn’t fit or discrepancies. That thought caused his stomach to pull tight at the realization. “It was wrong?”

“Yes. The army personnel were rather old fashioned in what they expected a soul mark to look like.” Solo looked a little mischievous for a moment before his face fell a bit and he turned towards the side, speaking to the edge of the bed instead of Illya. “As you may recall, there is rather a lot of camouflage for an odd soul mark.”

Illya squeezed Solo’s hand. It was not much comfort, but it brought Solo’s eyes back to him.

“You did see it when you rescued me. I thought you knew that, and didn’t want me. Or were matched elsewhere and wanted to let me down. Although looking back, you don’t really do anything gently.”

“I never saw.” Illya tugged on Solo’s hand, making him look at him, see his sincerity. His heart was still wavering, wondering if it was all some sort of ruse, but there was another part that was hoping. A hope he hadn’t ever acknowledged.

“Yes, you did. You looked at it for a rather long time.” Illya replayed that day in his mind, tried to think of what he had seen. He had tried so hard not to look too closely. Yet now that he knew, looking back he suddenly recalled the one that had stuck out, the one that had unsettled him.

“Your hip?”

“Yes, Peril. I can’t believe for someone that is supposed to be an amazing spy, he didn’t recognize his own name.” Illya drew his brows together again, asking silently for Solo to explain. Solo rolled his eyes, in an almost affectionate way. “Have you never wondered why I know Russian? Of all the languages I picked up, didn’t that one seem rather odd?”

Now that he pointed it out it did. The romance languages were places were art and culture flourished. The Japanese fit because of his time in the army and where he had been needed during the war. And now that he thought back, Russian was listed on his entry form into the Army. Russia had arts and culture, but not in a style that was to Solo’s taste. It didn’t fit.

Solo tugged his hand free from Illya’s. Illya almost didn’t let him go, but he saw that Solo was standing up straighter. Instead of moving further away, or whatever Illya assumed he was doing, Solo’s hand went to his belt. Illya could not help the dryness that settled in his mouth as he watched those skilled fingers work the belt open and the fly of his trousers. He pulled out a portion of his shirt, and tugged down the edge of his underwear.

There, bared for Illya to look his fill, was a dark red mark. In place of the pale pink it had been on that day, it was now livid against Solo’s pale hip. At first glance it still looked like a ragged bullet hole. Yet as he really looked at it, he realized that spelled out around a central point, in ragged script, was the word Peril. It was written in Cyrillic. Unless you were looking for it, it would have passed as a scar.

His hand lifted without a thought and moved towards his mark. It was so clear now that it was his. He stopped just before he could brush the skin, close enough to feel the heat of Solo’s hip. Or rather Napoleon’s hip. His soulmate’s hip. Before he could decide if he could touch or not Napoleon cupped the back if his hand and pushed it against the mark.

Illya and Napoleon gasped in unison. It felt like something was clicking into place, a piece of Napoleon that had been missing and he never knew it. Or only tangentially. Their breathing was ragged, and it took a moment for Illya to catch his breath. His hand then unconsciously started to stroke the mark under his hand, that had now turned black with the locking in of the soul mate. It was his mark. That he had thought it was a scar before seemed unfathomable now. It was him as a mark. Something that had been perfect for the other spy, it had allowed Napoleon to live the life he needed to in order to be where Illya could meet him. It had given him the freedom to be himself, and Illya knew that is all he would have wanted.

Solo hovered his hand over Illya’s mark once more. He hesitated, even thought Illya had yet to take his hand from Solo’s mark. Illya gave a soft laugh and used his free hand and copying what Solo had done before, pulled the American’s hand towards his mark. Towards his heart. Again, they both gasped, and this time it was Illya feeling that missing piece slide into place. They were now locked in to their bond, and they were whole.

“Mine.” Illya said as he held Napoleon’s hand to him.

“Yours.” Napoleon agreed. He leaned forward so that their foreheads touched, and they breathed the same air. They stayed that way until Illya’s stomach grumbled and they broke apart laughing in a way that they had very rarely ever experienced.

Things did not change as much as they would have thought afterwards. They still bickered and poked fun at each other. They still ran missions and worked better together than they had ever worked apart. And they still tore the world apart when either of them were in danger.

It was in their off time that they saw the most change. There were the quiet moments where they just orbited in each other’s space. Never realizing it they fell into certain positions, a hold that allowed them access to the other’s mark. Even walking they would unconsciously drift towards the marks. Mostly though, Napoleon would lean against Illya, his head resting against the Russian’s heart and his own mark. Illya’s hand would find its way down to that tantalizing hip. Without realizing it he would start stroking the clothing that covered his name, and slowly he would find his hand making its way under the clothing to touch what was his.

They also found their marks very compatible when they were doing other things with rather less clothing.

The end.


End file.
